Wow. The first time I viewed FALLEN ANGEL, I had to get over my awe at the pyrotechnics, the large-screen drama and shocking twists of fate. The second time, what I noticed most was a sense of DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN. It was as if this season opener was actually a review, reconciliation, resolution of nearly all the major themes of XWP from the first season through the last. So many familiar faces (e.g., the young son from ALTERED STATES, the guys from THE PRICE, DIRTY HALF DOZEN, WHEN IN ROME). The ongoing "who can/should be redeemed" complexities. Battle and rescue scenes reminiscent particularly of A NECESSARY EVIL. The yin-yang/way of love vs. way of the warrior motif of the fourth season. But especially the treatment of X&G's pivotal relationship and the stark unveiling of what their love for each other might really mean to their Ways. Most of these had already been explored on earth and in some form of Tartarus or the other, both in life and in "death." Now they were being played out in Paradise and looked chillingly similar. Except the circle seemed complete, with important ends finally tied up and recognition that eternity in the Xenaverse doesn't seem much different than what X&G experienced in their daily flesh and blood lives.

ANGEL begins in "reality," which turns out to be a sort of parallel universe where the frozen, bleak mountainside underscores for X&G's friends - including us - what life without such heroic souls would be like. Joxer's nightmares have told him that his friends are in trouble. Amarice sadly points out to him the crosses, saying that, in reality, "They're not in trouble any more." (As if.) Eli says that they all loved X&G very much; what he doesn't voice is the sentiment on his companions' faces - that love wasn't enough to save X&G. Ironically, it is Joxer who refuses to leave his friends' bodies up as evidence of love's failures. He wants to reclaim them, honor them by taking their remains to their families for proper burial. His determination convinces Eli and Amarice.

We pan from Xena's body to another realm, where the two friends' spirits sit together on a ledge in their white dresses. But Xena is still the warrior, surveying the external environment for clues, and Gabrielle is still the bard, seemingly contemplating within herself what it might mean. A dazzling white light appears, which Gabrielle unhesitatingly goes to with ecstasy on her face, while Xena puts a protective, restraining hand on her partner's shoulder. But G feels in her environment now, saying, "It's OK," and patting X's hand reassuringly. The bard walks out on the ledge, as she did so often in life, trusting the angelic hand reaching out to her from the light, for once finding it to be as good as she believed. X is characteristically uncertain, anxiously trying to grab hold of her friend as she is spirited away. Perhaps she is still feeling she must look out for Gabrielle. Perhaps she is afraid that she will be left behind. I am a little afraid too. Regardless of her own fears and fate, X still smiles in wonder and joy when she sees G happy in the arms of these strangers. She is startled to find herself being embraced by them, too. G only smiles confidently, her faith in X's goodness also proven true.

But X's instincts are equally on target. She senses something not quite right in all this goodness, looks down and quickly discovers once again that evil is only a wingspan away. Deadly creatures knock G from her protective circle of angels, then X. X desperately tries to grab G's hand, though this time no rope around her waist will stop their plummet. Just as their fingers nearly touch, X's dark past returns to get in the way. Callisto. The WP looks in horror, first at her nemesis, then at G's disappearance into another void. "By the gods," X must be thinking, "Again? Here, too? And this is supposed to be Paradise?" One of the angels rescues her, leaving an enraged Callisto probably fuming, "Again? Here, too? And this is supposed to be my Hell's revenge?"

X demands to know how a soul as good as G's can end up in Hell. Her savior, the Archangel Michael, sadly tells her that Paradise is experiencing the same battle between good and evil that rages on earth. Renegade angels want to twist Paradise into their naughty image. As far as X is concerned, it's business as usual. "Gabrielle must be rescued," and it's her responsibility - not the archangels' - to do that, and phooey on whatever plans and requirements some deity may have. She strides to the precipice, muttering that other agendas must wait. "Right now, I'm going after my friend." "That's impossible," Mike says, apparently not having watched the XWP series. "No it's not," X emphatically responds. "No it's not," she whispers to herself, as she spreads her arms and topples over the edge.

Mike rescues her again, asking, "Are you insane?" "Depends on who you talk to," she retorts. He lists all the unpleasantries she'll face if she goes to Hell. She says she and G have already been there and done that, so what's his point? Finally, she foregoes bravado. "Our souls were meant to be together. I can't let her walk in Hell alone," she says with tears in her eyes. "Please."

We flash to G, waking up next to -- "Xena?" Nope. Her worst nightmare - Callisto. "Xena will not leave me down here with you," she says defiantly. "You have such faith," Cally responds. She agrees that X will make "some self-sacrificing gesture," but cackles that her gang will be ready. G finds herself hungering for the devil's fruit, but knows she must resist. "That'll make me like you. Not a chance."

Back to "reality," a warrior, a peacemaker and "Everyman" work together to free X&G's bodies. Joxer carries his cold, lifeless friends down from their crosses, his face etched with pain and nausea, their wounds probably inflicting on him visions of what they must have suffered.

In Paradise, X must pass a test if she's to become a warrior angel. She purposefully marches into a cave. In one direction is a waterfall, much like the one that burned, then cleansed her in Illusia. Her other choice is a wall of flames. She sneers slightly, never one to fear fighting fire with fire or pass up what seems the most direct route, even if it means going through Hell. Michael, waiting outside, says it's taking her too long. When, sure enough, she comes out flaming, I'm thinking, "Uh oh. Was choosing what she's most familiar with wrong, too easy?" No! Whew! She's purified herself, so *now* she gets to wade in the sanctifying waters. A few bubbles later, she emerges as what she'd once thought she'd "not a chance" of becoming - an angel!

In the present, she's lying "dead," looking much like she did in THE GREATER GOOD. Like Gabrielle in that ep, Amarice is playing with X's hair, vowing to carry on where the WP left off, striking out in a grieving rage - not physically at a tree, but verbally at Eli. She accuses him of messing with G's warrior spirit, infecting her with peaceful mush that led to the bard's helplessness and capture.

In the other realm, a Gabbylike guardian angel asks why he can't go on the rescue mission, asserting that he was a pretty good fighter on earth. A Xena-sounding Michael says fighting isn't everything, that the young angel could be overwhelmed by Hell. X, looking like a warlord with wings, steps forward, saying she's pretty experienced dealing with evil. Michael warns her, too, reminding her that she's different now, that she has compassion as an angel that will make her vulnerable to the suffering she'll see in Hell, maybe tempting her to give up her light to switch places with and save G. (Duh! She's been down that road before, too, Mike.) The WP simply says, "I'm ready."

Good thing, too, 'cause her partner's going nuts trying not to eat that fruit. Cally once again takes matters into her own hands by getting her gang to force the stuff down G's throat. Having been down *that* road, G turns into Hell's version of the Bacchae, kicking butt like when Takata was inside her, ultimately scaring the Scary One with her own version of the Truth or Dare game Cally played in A NECESSARY EVIL. Oooo. Just as C&G are about to strangle each other (which seems about as futile as the sword fights between all the other dead folks in this realm), the angels attack, with X commanding her comrades to "get Gabrielle out of here!" Naturally, they obey. Then X and C go at it like in the good old days, with the former naturally coming out on top. C spits out that X stole everything from her worth living for and that she'll spend the rest of eternity hating X and seeking vengeance. With empathetic tears in her eyes, Xena softly responds, "No." She touches this embodiment of her past, giving C her light, at last able to heal the wound she never thought could be closed in either of them.

Back upstairs, G can't believe Michael's assertion that Xena "gave herself up to save one of the damned." She's even more dumbfounded when she sees that the new angel is Callisto. Echoing Cally's angry exclamation at the beginning of IDES, G says, "Are you telling me that Xena is in hell, and (Cally's) in Paradise?" What's even worse, Cally has no memory of what she did post-Destroyer of Nations. G is incensed. "This is insane!" Michael responds, "Xena called it 'justice.' She chose to suffer in Callisto's place." (Reminded me of "nonviolent" G's frenzied bloodletting to save X in IDES, at the possible sacrifice of her own soul. Like Xena suggested, sanity is in the eye of the beholder.) There's one little problem with X's noble gesture. Her formidable warrior skills are now at the disposal of evil, and even Michael fears being defeated by her. With the Greater Good in the balance, this time G chooses to sacrifice her relationship with Xena, offering to lure her partner into a trap, even though it means consigning her friend to an eternity in ugly little pieces.

As a prelude to angeldom, G enters the testing cave, but this trial is different from the one Xena faced. There are defendants - Callisto, Xena and, ultimately, G herself. She dismissively attributes Xena's sacrifice to "a guilty conscience," bitterly rejects Cally's heartfelt apologies for causing G pain, and says C is "evil to the core and always will be." Finally G believes C. She lets go of the past, and the two caress each other's faces as they, too, heal the long festering wound between them. G's forgiveness not only allows her acceptance of the recently demonstrated goodness in both X and C, but restores her faith that everyone deserves a second chance. She's earned her wings. And maybe she now secretly believes that she can still save Xena as well as the Greater Good.

When Devil Xena's new recruits attack, and their leader heads straight for G just as G predicted, the Bard Angel stands her ground with sword unsheathed. X pushes all the old buttons. "We shouldn't be fighting," she croons. G, torn between fear and love, agrees. "I want to spend eternity with you," X says. G asks her to throw down her sword, arguing that if Cally can be redeemed, so can X. (Ironic, huh?) X says no way. "Gabrielle, the love that we have, it transcends good or evil. It's an end in itself. Our souls are destined to be together. Gabrielle, you can't let me walk through Hell alone." Visibly shaken at Xena's apparent sincerity (and possibly aware that this beloved devil has just stated what many of us fans came to believe was the whole point of the angst we and our girls endured), Gabrielle sighs, "I'm sorry." Sorry? What in Hell happened to, "Even in death I will never leave you?" Oh, that was Xena. Didn't G say something like that somewhere? It sure as heck was implied. Anyway, X doesn't like G's attitude very much, so Michael gives the sign to attack. In a scene eerily reminiscent of IDES, G fends off the devils with her sword, then yells to Michael, "I'll draw Xena off!" She flies away. Xena predictably pursues, looking and sounding very much like Wabbit Warrior in PARADISE. The two begin duking it out.

Meanwhile back in the other present, Eli's off sulking. "What good is this gift if I can't protect the ones I love?" Cally's newly sensitized ears pick up on his self-recrimination. Her spirit comes to him, reassuring him that, "Love *is* the way. Go to them." (Amazing, huh?) Perhaps because he has less history with Cally, he believes her right off and rushes back to lay hands on X&G's bodies. Upstairs, Devil X has knocked Angel G senseless. X lovingly caresses G's face, then picks her up and heads for another one of them thar cliffs. Cally is now standing behind Eli, their joined hands beaming light into what's left of X&G. Mike's questionable tackle of otherworldly X sends all three of them plummeting into the darkness. But wait! They're disintegrating a la BETWEEN THE LINES. C&E's mojo must be working! The girls' eyes are opening, they're heads are turning towards each other, and they're reaching for each other's hands! All right! Isn't it?

Their friends sure are happy. Stunned, but relieved that everything seems in order again. (As if.) The girls are understandably a bit weak and dazed themselves. Michael and Cally are there smiling. Some unspoken understanding passes between them. Cally goes over and touches X, which earns the former psycho (C, not X) the right to be reunited with her family. X&G wearily gaze at one another like people who've just careened between a rock and a hard place, found Heaven and Hell in the same place and aren't too sure what on earth that means. G, back to seeing the glass half full, gives it a shot: "We're going to be together for eternity." X sighs with a slightly bittersweet smile, "Yeah." Fade out on some exhausted, confused folks. Who buried a lot of things, though thankfully not their friends, and unearthed some other things they're not quite sure how they feel about yet. As in BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, they'll just have to wait for tomorrow to start all over again. That's life, it would seem. Even in the skies and pits of Eternity.